References

Companion research notes on the claims and cases the essays cite — the documented background behind the writing.

Research Notes: Behavioral Modernity

The timeline of symbolic and religious behavior: burials, cave art, figurines, temples — and the unresolved fight between sudden-transition and gradualist accounts.
Research Notes: Clive Wearing

The documented case of Clive Wearing: facts, what the case supports, and what it has been stretched to support.
Research Notes: Neuroscience Foundations
Research Notes: Religion as a Cognitive Byproduct

The cognitive science of religion's byproduct account: the machinery, the evidence, the adaptationist rivals, and what the school does not claim.
Research Notes: Rubber Hand Illusion

A classic neurological experiment where the brain adopts an artificial hand as part of the body, demonstrating the 'self-model' in action.
Research Notes: Spandrels, Drift, and the Filter's Resolution

How the evolutionary filter actually behaves: selection removes costly traits, drift keeps neutral ones, and a cheap byproduct sits below the filter's resolution — the strong version of the gedankenspiel.
Research Notes: Storage vs. Use

A distinction between data that is simply held (storage) and data that is actively processed to influence behavior (use).
Research Notes: The Axial Age and the Mythos-to-Logos Frame

Jaspers's Axial Age observation, the classic mythos-to-logos story, the historians' objections, and Bellah's deeper frame.
Research Notes: The Claudia Incident

The documented facts of Richard Dawkins's April 2026 conversation with Claude ('Claudia'), his conversion, the pushback, and what the episode does and does not show.
Research Notes: The Narrative Self and Illusionism

The academic neighborhood of 'the glow is the telling': Dennett's narrative gravity, Frankish's illusionism, Metzinger's self-model — and the standard objection they all face.
Research Notes: The OpenAI–Hugging Face Incident

The documented facts of the 2026 OpenAI–Hugging Face swarm incident: timeline, what is verified, what is spin, and what the behavioral evidence actually shows about agent autonomy and emergent goals.